The Spectator

Barometer | 4 February 2012

issue 04 February 2012

Bonus culture

Some have called for an end to a ‘bonus culture’ in banks and big firms. But bonus culture has been around a long time…
— Around the year ad 70, Roman legionnaires received bonuses of 25 denarii to supplement their salaries of 225 denarii.
— Bonuses were recorded by 14th-century Florentine banks, with one employee of the Peruzzi Company receiving 40 lire to supplement a salary of five times that sum.

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